Thursday, August 16, 2007

one of the 'hottest' topics these days on all spectra is global warming.there are enough local signs each of us are experiencing which indicate changing weather patterns.there is again much debate in the scientific community on the ayes and nays regarding the impact of carbon emissions on global temperature, etc.i almost come across an article everyday in mainstream media.

here is a series from the sidelines on the state of weather in orissa:

The state has been declared disaster-affected for 95 years out of the last 105 years: floods have occurred for 50 years, droughts for 32, and cyclones have struck the state for 11 years.

People like my mother remember six distinct seasons -- grishma (summer), barsa (rains), sarata (autumn), hemanta (dew), sisira (winter) and basanta (spring).....Today, there are no such signs. Orissa has only two seasons: the rains and summer, with winter being a mild transition between the two.

Constantly pushed back by the sea, the local residents find themselves in a unique situation: technically they are encroachers as their legal documents show their lands are somewhere inside the sea. In fact, the government still asks for land revenue and the villagers pay it to maintain their legal status.

Going by the Indian Meteorological Department’s cyclone statistics for 1877-1990, the Orissa coast has been hit the hardest. Of the 964 cyclones that crossed the east coast during this period, 422 struck Orissa.